New Amendments To Investment Law, Enterprise Law, Electricity Law, Residential Housing Law and Other Laws

On 11 January 2022, the National Assembly passed a new law amending 09 laws, including Public Investment Law, Public-Private Partnership Law, Investment Law, Residential Housing Law, Tendering Law, Electricity Law, Enterprise Law, Law On Special Consumption Tax, and Law On Civil Judgment Enforcement (Law 03/2022). Law 03/2022 will come into effect on 1 March 2022. In this post, we will discuss some new key points of Law 03/2022.

1) Enterprise Law 2020

Change of the term “members of the Members’ Council” into “members of the company”

As discussed before, the Enterprise Law 2020 (Articles 49 and 50) only provides for the rights of members of the Members’ Council, but not the rights of the members of the LLC. And many rights of the members of the Members’ Council should be the rights of the members of the LLC such as rights to subscribe for new capital increase or to receive dividends paid by the LLC. The change of the term “members of the Members’ Council” into “members of the company” in Articles 49 and 50 has successfully resolved this problem, although in other provisions, the Enterprise Law 2020 still does not distinguish between the positions of members of the LLC and members of the Members’ Council of the LLC.

Removal of requirement on signatures of dissenting members on meeting minutes; personal liability of the chairperson and the person writing the minutes

The requirement that meeting minutes of the Members’ Council must include signatures of members who disagree to pass such meeting minutes is now removed.

In addition, in the event that the chairperson of the meeting of the Members’ Council/Board Of Directors or the person writing the minutes refuses to sign the meeting minutes, for such minutes to be effective, the Enterprise Law 2020 no longer requires all attending members of the meetings to sign, and only the signatures of the attending members who agree to pass the minutes are necessary. Also, in such event, the chairperson or the person writing the minutes who refuses to sign such minutes must bear personal liability for any loss arising to the company due to their refusal.

Approved 2021-2030 Land Use Master Plan

On 13 November 2021, the National Assembly issued Resolution No. 39 to approve the land use master plan for the period 2021-2030 with a vision to 2045 and a land-use plan in 5 years from 2021 to 2025 (Land Use Master Plan).

One of the goals of the Land Use Master Plan is to satisfy the land demand to implement the economic and social development strategy for 10 years from 2021 to 2030 and the economic and social development plan for 5 years from 2021 to 2025. The Land Use Master Plan also aims to stabilize 3,5 million hectares of rice cultivation land, and the forest coverage ratio is at 42-43%.

Major Changes To The Implementing Rules of Law On Real Estate Business in Vietnam

On 6 January 2022, the Government issued Decree 2/2022 on implementation of the Law on Real Estate Business 2014. Decree 2/2022 will take effect from 1 March 2022 and replace Decree 76/2015. This post will summarize some notable new regulations introduced by Decree 2/2022.

This post is written by Nguyen Hoang Duong and edited by Nguyen Quang Vu.

New definitions

Decree 2/2022 introduces definitions for various vague legal terms which are frequently used in the Law on Real Estate Business 2014, such as real properties made available for sale (bất động sản đưa vào kinh doanh), real estate project (dự án bất động sản), or contracts for real estate trading (hợp đồng kinh doanh bất động sản). The new definitions could facilitate a more consistent of the interpretation of various regulations of the Law on Real Estate Business 2014 and Decree 76/2015.

Disclosure requirement by a real estate developer

Under Decree 2/2022, a real estate developer will have to make various public disclosure about its real estate projects. In particular, the following information must be made available on website of the developer, at headquarter of project management board (in case of investment project of doing real estate business), or at real estate trading floor (in case of doing real estate business via trading floor):

· information as to real properties made available for sale;

· information as to mortgage of house, construction works, and real properties made available for sale (if any); and

· information as to quantity, type of (1) real properties available for sale, (2) real properties that have been sold, transferred, leased, and remaining real properties available for trading; and

· any change to the above information.

Allocating Sea Area for Offshore Wind Power Projects In Vietnam

Applicability of Decree 11/2021

It is likely that an offshore wind power project (Offshore WPP) will need to follow the procedures under Decree 11/2021 in order to be allocated with the necessary sea area for development and operation of the Offshore WPP. This is because:

  • Under the current wind power development regime of Vietnam, an Offshore WPP is defined as a grid-connected wind power project with wind power turbines constructed and operated “from the average lowest seawater line over several years off the coast” (nằm ngoài đường mép nước biển thấp nhất trung bình trong nhiều năm ra ngoài khơi);

  • Decree 11/2021 applies to the allocation of certain sea area “from the average lowest seawater line over several years off the coast” for exploitation and use of “sea resource” (tài nguyên biển); and

  • Sea resource is defined to include biological and non-biological resource of the water mass, the [sea] bed and the soil beneath the seabed.